'Anyway' shots

This week the Royal Golf Club's PGA Teaching Professional, Martin Robinson, gives tips on a disciplined approach

THE human brain is a strange piece of machinery. Its main function is to avoid pain (survival) and its secondary function is to move us towards pleasure.

The brain's need to keep us safe means that constant messages are sent from the body to the brain in order to regulate our health and keep things the same - our temperature, water intake, body fuel etc.

This need to keep our patterns and habits the same can sometimes make achieving change very difficult even when it is in our best interests. If you are about to hit a shot on the golf course particularly under pressure you will sometimes find the voice in your head telling you either 'this doesn't feel right' or it will say negative thoughts like 'don't go in the water' but what happens, you hit it anyway because to stop and readdress the ball would be breaking the pattern of a lifetime. I call this kind of shot an 'anyway' shot, because despite knowing that you don't feel 100 per cent committed to, or confident of the shot you decide to hit it anyway! This normally ends in a bad result.

There is real benefit to be had from restarting the process of setting up to hit the ball again. This part is called the pre-shot routine. It is the same as getting rid of a virus from a computer by re-booting it. You can re-boot your system by taking a few seconds to step away when the harmful thoughts creep in and refocus purely on what you want to achieve with the shot.

It has taken me years to become disciplined enough to be able to restart my pre-shot routine any time things don't feel right, and for the outsider looking in it would appear that you are nervous or uncomfortable because you keep stepping away from the ball. But the truth is that you are just disciplined with your mental approach.

When you first start practicing this as you play you will have to do it more often, but as your brain gets used to the fact that you won't hit a shot until you are positive and focused you will find that 'anyway' shots will not occur as often as they used to.

There are three separate reasons why you may have to re-boot your system; the first is an external reason, either a noise from a playing partner or a weather condition. The second is that your setup feels uncomfortable and the third is if the chatter inside your head is negative.

If you have the discipline to not allow yourself to hit any more 'anyway' shots you will give yourself the best chance of executing each and every shot as you want to.